Spontaneous formation of geysers at only one pole on Enceladus’s ice shell
The ice shell on Enceladus, an icy moon of Saturn, exhibits strong asymmetry between the northern and southern hemispheres, with all known geysers concentrated over the south pole, even though the expected pattern of tidal forced deformation should be symmetric between the north and south poles. Usi...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:7334464 2023-05-15T18:22:30+02:00 Spontaneous formation of geysers at only one pole on Enceladus’s ice shell Kang, Wanying Flierl, Glenn 2020-06-30 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7334464/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32546519 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2001648117 en eng National Academy of Sciences http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7334464/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32546519 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2001648117 https://www.pnas.org/site/aboutpnas/licenses.xhtmlPublished under the PNAS license (https://www.pnas.org/site/aboutpnas/licenses.xhtml) . Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A Physical Sciences Text 2020 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2001648117 2020-12-20T01:19:35Z The ice shell on Enceladus, an icy moon of Saturn, exhibits strong asymmetry between the northern and southern hemispheres, with all known geysers concentrated over the south pole, even though the expected pattern of tidal forced deformation should be symmetric between the north and south poles. Using an idealized ice-evolution model, we demonstrate that this asymmetry may form spontaneously, without any noticeable a priori asymmetry (such as a giant impact or a monopole structure of geological activity), in contrast to previous studies. Infinitesimal asymmetry in the ice shell thickness due to random perturbations are found to be able to grow indefinitely, ending up significantly thinning the ice shell at one of the poles, thereby allowing fracture formation there. Necessary conditions to trigger this hemispheric symmetry-breaking mechanism are found analytically. A rule of thumb we find is that, for Galilean and Saturnian icy moons, the ice shell can undergo hemispheric symmetry breaking only if the mean shell thickness is around 10 to 30 km. Text South pole PubMed Central (PMC) South Pole Thumb ENVELOPE(-64.259,-64.259,-65.247,-65.247) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117 26 14764 14768 |
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Physical Sciences |
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Physical Sciences Kang, Wanying Flierl, Glenn Spontaneous formation of geysers at only one pole on Enceladus’s ice shell |
topic_facet |
Physical Sciences |
description |
The ice shell on Enceladus, an icy moon of Saturn, exhibits strong asymmetry between the northern and southern hemispheres, with all known geysers concentrated over the south pole, even though the expected pattern of tidal forced deformation should be symmetric between the north and south poles. Using an idealized ice-evolution model, we demonstrate that this asymmetry may form spontaneously, without any noticeable a priori asymmetry (such as a giant impact or a monopole structure of geological activity), in contrast to previous studies. Infinitesimal asymmetry in the ice shell thickness due to random perturbations are found to be able to grow indefinitely, ending up significantly thinning the ice shell at one of the poles, thereby allowing fracture formation there. Necessary conditions to trigger this hemispheric symmetry-breaking mechanism are found analytically. A rule of thumb we find is that, for Galilean and Saturnian icy moons, the ice shell can undergo hemispheric symmetry breaking only if the mean shell thickness is around 10 to 30 km. |
format |
Text |
author |
Kang, Wanying Flierl, Glenn |
author_facet |
Kang, Wanying Flierl, Glenn |
author_sort |
Kang, Wanying |
title |
Spontaneous formation of geysers at only one pole on Enceladus’s ice shell |
title_short |
Spontaneous formation of geysers at only one pole on Enceladus’s ice shell |
title_full |
Spontaneous formation of geysers at only one pole on Enceladus’s ice shell |
title_fullStr |
Spontaneous formation of geysers at only one pole on Enceladus’s ice shell |
title_full_unstemmed |
Spontaneous formation of geysers at only one pole on Enceladus’s ice shell |
title_sort |
spontaneous formation of geysers at only one pole on enceladus’s ice shell |
publisher |
National Academy of Sciences |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7334464/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32546519 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2001648117 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-64.259,-64.259,-65.247,-65.247) |
geographic |
South Pole Thumb |
geographic_facet |
South Pole Thumb |
genre |
South pole |
genre_facet |
South pole |
op_source |
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7334464/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32546519 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2001648117 |
op_rights |
https://www.pnas.org/site/aboutpnas/licenses.xhtmlPublished under the PNAS license (https://www.pnas.org/site/aboutpnas/licenses.xhtml) . |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2001648117 |
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |
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117 |
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26 |
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14764 |
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14768 |
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1766201910385180672 |